Ok I’m now a good chunk into The Works of Vermin and there are indeed a surprising number of weird smells described, even after I was warned about them. The bugs are also surprisingly unbothersome.
Roseanna Pendlebury
@chloroformtea.bsky.social
SFF enthusiast, hobby-collector, blogger, shouter-at-the-internet. Editor at Ignyte and Hugo winner Nerds of a Feather, along with reviews elsewhere. 2026 Hugo Fan Writer finalist. All links here: https://linktr.ee/roseanna.pendlebury (she/her).
Gone on a little excursion today. I was planning to read on the pier, but it’s enormously windy, so doughnuts it’ll have to be instead.
Film Review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day Adventure, plot twists, and emotional depth in a much needed reminder of why we love superhero stories. Ann Michelle Harris ( @annmichelleharris.bsky.social )has our review www.nerds-feather.com/2026/08/film...
Film Review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Adventure, plot twists, and emotional depth in a much needed reminder of why we love superhero stories. On the continuum of superhero films,...
nerds-feather.com
NEW VIDEO ALERT! Today on Bar Cart Bookshelf we're talking about A TASTE OF HONEY by Kai Ashante Wilson. An achingly tender story of love and duty, the end made all the hair on my arms stand up. Queer, lovely, immensely powerful. This is a truly VITAL novella. Our drink is Olorum.
This feels like a strong entry in the genre of matchy matchy bookmark
For the last... at least a fortnight, maybe more... I've had the music from Epic stuck in my brain on a near constant loop. Not a shock, given all the Odyssey content. Yesterday, I finally caught a break! It is only this morning (now Epic has returned) that I realise this, too, is Odyssey content.
F*@#ing Matt Damon
YouTube video by Jimmy Kimmel Live
youtube.com
Book Review: Wickhills by Premee Mohamed Manticores, vampyrs, and spies challenge a magical city @klaxoncomms.com has our review at the blog www.nerds-feather.com/2026/08/book...
Book Review: Wickhills by Premee Mohamed
Manticores, vampyrs, and spies challenge a magical city Premee Mohamed’s Wickhills is a John le Carré-style spy story that manages to bot...
nerds-feather.com
🎛️ Crank up the volume, it's Critical Friends! 🏆 Uh-oh, it's some more awards chat. @abigailnussbaum.bsky.social and @amritesh.bsky.social talk to me about the Clarke, the Hugo, the Booker, the Le Guin ... ⁉️ What relationship between critic and award, award and reader? 🤔 Also: marketing. Again.
Critical Friends Episode 26: On Awards
In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Amritesh Mukherjee and Abigail Nussbaum join Dan Hartland to talk about literary awards.
strangehorizons.com
Once again, the seagulls and the foxes have decided that the middle of the night is the time to revive their eternal war outside our flat.
I had the now-traditional Clarke Award discussion at NoaF again this year, and (possibly as is clear from the length) had a great time chatting to Dan about all of it. Come for the jokes, stay for the book opinions.
Nerds of a Feather@nerdsofafeather.bsky.social · 3d agoThe Arthur C. Clarke Award 2026: A Shortlist Discussion Dan Hartland ( @danhartland.bsky.social ), who is Reviews Editor at Strange Horizons, joins our @chloroformtea.bsky.social for a meaty discussion of the shortlist: www.nerds-feather.com/2026/08/the-... #blueskybooks #booksky
Sparked by discussions on the Clarke shortlist this year, I'm curious: what would the six on YOUR Clarke award shortlist look like?
I had the now-traditional Clarke Award discussion at NoaF again this year, and (possibly as is clear from the length) had a great time chatting to Dan about all of it. Come for the jokes, stay for the book opinions.
Nerds of a Feather@nerdsofafeather.bsky.social · 3d agoThe Arthur C. Clarke Award 2026: A Shortlist Discussion Dan Hartland ( @danhartland.bsky.social ), who is Reviews Editor at Strange Horizons, joins our @chloroformtea.bsky.social for a meaty discussion of the shortlist: www.nerds-feather.com/2026/08/the-... #blueskybooks #booksky
Ok I’m not going to get all six in, but I’m now playing Blue Prince which gets me to five of the Best Game finalists.
Today’s gaming comes from behind the ramparts of bromance and boats.
Reading The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo by Zen Cho and just absolutely delighted by the narrator’s voice. Instantly funny and clever and wry in a way that makes me grin. Also the story starts with her writing a authoring review of a lauded author’s book. So lots to appeal.
Our Lord of the Rings close read continues, and it's all getting a bit epic now. I go a little quote-mad, and get a bit too into Denethor, in this episode.
A Close Reading of LotR – Episode 18 – Bangers Akimbo
This is the closest I could find to the image I had in my head of the Púkel-men It continues. This time, we covered III – The Muster of Rohan and IV – The Siege of Gondor. Seems pretty …
readerofelse.wordpress.com
Today’s book post goes straight onto the Le Guin reading stack.
My review of A Trade of Blood, the latest fantasy mystery in Robert Jackson Bennett's Shadow of the Leviathan series, is up at @nerdsofafeather.bsky.social. Like the first two books, great fun and expert character work combined with genuinely interesting social speculation. Great stuff.
Book Review: A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett
Meat is murder This is a book about murder and forced labour as well as the cost of beef. And the last is quite probably the most important....
nerds-feather.com
I don't get awfully invested in the stats on my blog, but there's one thing that I cannot stop wondering about: why is the top viewed post consistently my review of Red Rising? I wrote that review in 2017, and it's not especially good or interesting. It's just variations on the theme of "godawful".
Gonna be on some virtual panels at worldcon. Gonna talk about some criticism. Aww yeah.
since Ancient Greeks mythology is all we’re talking about these days, who wants to read my poem about achilles and patroclus (but specifically their appearance in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida) strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...
little stomach
i am not interested in homosexuality. /there should have been a warning.
strangehorizons.com
I should possibly lay off the sass about my cat being an orange idiot; the other orange idiot in the flat just scalded herself opening a ready meal immediately after it came out of the oven. One of us at least can consume their meals without injury, and Pellinore should be respected accordingly.
Separate sections for prose fiction (all of it), graphic novels/comics, poetry and drama and non-fiction, plus a separate book case for all the classics books (in the Romans-and-Greeks sense). Every section ordered by author surname. And a separate pile (piles now) for TBR.
Immigrant Punk@porcupunk.eurosky.social · last wk.Enough of the horrors and doom scrolling. Let's talk about something fun. How do you arrange your books?
Coming up on a year of serious novel reviewing, & it's been interesting & frustrating to see the different approaches of different review copy platforms. Short version is one typically has a decent punt on Netgalley, but at least for those of us outside the US, Edelweiss success rates are very low.
Like just about everyone else, I have opinions about Nolan’s Odyssey. Read all about it if you’re not Odysseyed out.
Nerds of a Feather@nerdsofafeather.bsky.social · last wk.To Burn the Walls of Troy; To Break the World Entire - Christopher Nolan's Odyssey Another take on mythology's most complicated man, and the world he lived in A very rich and detailed piece from @chloroformtea.bsky.social at the NOAF blog: www.nerds-feather.com/2026/07/to-b...
The people* yearn for pronunciation guides in the front of their fantasy books. *It’s me, I’m people
This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b
Second discussion complete, doom has come to the walls of Minas Tirith and so has our reread.
